I'd predict more backlash from the accusations over that Paris Hilton ad being subversively racist, from moderate undecided white folks, than outrage of some kind about it actually being racist.

So, no matter what the intentions were it's a losing issue for Obama.

He needs to avoid causing resentment about race at all costs.

I agree. The Reverend Wright debacle, the "typical white person" sound bite, the comments from Senator Obama not looking like the guy on the dollar bill, the (white) celebrity girls he was compared to.....this is a losing issue for him. I'm not sure if Obama's taking the bait from the McCain campaign, or if Obama is inventing the bait itself.

I think he can beat this race stuff, but he has to transcend it again like he did pretty well in the primaries. Stick to the canned speeches and avoid the ad-libbing. When he gets away from the teleprompter....Obama is hurting himself with the undecided voters. Independents are beyond Obama's skin color I think. They are interested in serious policy issues, but the race undercurrent is a big turn-off.

I agree. The Reverend Wright debacle, the "typical white person" sound bite, the comments from Senator Obama not looking like the guy on the dollar bill, the (white) celebrity girls he was compared to.....this is a losing issue for him. I'm not sure if Obama's taking the bait from the McCain campaign, or if Obama is inventing the bait itself.

I think he can beat this race stuff, but he has to transcend it again like he did pretty well in the primaries. Stick to the canned speeches and avoid the ad-libbing. When he gets away from the teleprompter....Obama is hurting himself with the undecided voters. Independents are beyond Obama's skin color I think. They are interested in serious policy issues, but the race undercurrent is a big turn-off.

Good post.

The more Obama talks about race (and the more many of his extreme supporters call anyone who doesn't support him a racist), the more harm it does to his campaign.

How out of touch is Barack Obama? He's so out of touch that he suggested that if all Americans inflated their tires properly and took their cars for regular tune-ups, they could save as much oil as new offshore drilling would produce. Gleeful Republicans have made this their daily talking point; Rush Limbaugh is having a field day; and the Republican National Committee is sending tire gauges labeled "Barack Obama's Energy Plan" to Washington reporters.

But who's really out of touch? The Bush Administration estimates that expanded offshore drilling could increase oil production by 200,000 bbl. per day by 2030. We use about 20 million bbl. per day, so that would meet about 1% of our demand two decades from now. Meanwhile, efficiency experts say that keeping tires inflated can improve gas mileage 3%, and regular maintenance can add another 4%. Many drivers already follow their advice, but if everyone did, we could immediately reduce demand several percentage points. In other words: Obama is right.

In fact, Obama's actual energy plan is much more than a tire gauge. But that's not what's so pernicious about the tire-gauge attacks. Politics ain't beanbag, and Obama has defended himself against worse smears. The real problem with the attacks on his tire-gauge plan is that efforts to improve conservation and efficiency happen to be the best approaches to dealing with the energy crisis — the cheapest, cleanest, quickest and easiest ways to ease our addiction to oil, reduce our pain at the pump and address global warming. It's a pretty simple concept: if our use of fossil fuels is increasing our reliance on Middle Eastern dictators while destroying the planet, maybe we ought to use less.

The RNC is trying to make the tire gauge a symbol of unseriousness, as if only the fatuous believed we could reduce our dependence on foreign oil without doing the bidding of Big Oil. But the tire gauge is really a symbol of a very serious piece of good news: we can use significantly less energy without significantly changing our lifestyle. The energy guru Amory Lovins has shown that investment in "nega-watts" — reduced electricity use through efficiency improvements — is much more cost-effective than investment in new megawatts, and the same is clearly true of nega-barrels. It might not fit the worldviews of right-wingers who deny the existence of global warming and insist that reducing emissions would destroy our economy, or of left-wing Earth-firsters who insist that maintaining our creature comforts would destroy the world, but there's a lot of simple things we can do on the demand side before we start rushing to ratchet up supply.

We can use those twisty carbon fluorescent lightbulbs. We can unplug our televisions, computers and phone chargers when we're not using them. We can seal our windows, install more insulation and adjust our thermostats so that we waste less heat and air-conditioning. We can use more-efficient appliances, build more-efficient homes and drive more-efficient cars, preferably with government assistance. And, yes, we can inflate our tires and tune our engines, as Republican governors Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and Charlie Crist of Florida have urged, apparently without consulting the RNC. While we're at it, we can cut down on idling, which can improve fuel economy another 5%, and cut down on speeding and unnecessary acceleration, which can increase mileage as much as 20%.

And that's just the low-hanging fruit. There are other ways to reduce demand for oil — more public transportation, more carpooling, more telecommuting, more recycling, less exurban sprawl, fewer unnecessary car trips, buying less stuff and eating less meat — that would require at least some lifestyle changes. But things like tire gauges can reduce gas bills and carbon emissions now, with little pain and at little cost and without the ecological problems and oil-addiction problems associated with offshore drilling. These are the proverbial win-win-win solutions, reducing the pain of $100 trips to the gas station by reducing trips to the gas station. And Americans are already starting to adopt them, ditching SUVs, buying hybrids, reducing overall gas consumption. It's hard to see why anyone who isn't affiliated with the oil industry would object to them.

Of course, in recent years, the Republican Party has been affiliated with the oil industry. It was the oilman Dick Cheney who dismissed conservation as a mere sign of "personal virtue," not a basis for energy policy. It was the oilman George W. Bush who resisted efforts to regulate carbon emissions. And most congressional Republicans have been even more reliable water carriers for the industry's interests.

John McCain has been a notable exception. He is not an oilman; he has pushed to regulate carbon emissions; and he opposed Bush's pork-stuffed energy bill, which Obama supported. He also opposed efforts to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and until recently opposed new offshore drilling. But now that gas prices have spiked, McCain is running for President on a drill-first platform, and polls suggest that most Americans agree with him. It's sad to see his campaign adopting the politics of the tire gauge, promoting the fallacy that Americans are powerless to address their own energy problems. Because the truth is: Yes, we can. We already are.

what matters is the race card! who's playing it? when? where? who played it first? who said the other was playing it? did that mean that he just played it when he accused the other of playing it? did he just provoke one to say that the other one was provoking him to play the race card?

i mean, this is what matters, people.

because we live in a colorblind society, and white people have a god given right to not have race thrown in their face and to feel totally comfortable that their racial prejudices and discomfort are totally not racist.

Spread John McCain's official talking points around the Web -- and you could win valuable prizes!

That, in essence, is the McCain campaign's pitch to supporters to join its new online effort, one that combines the features of "AstroTurf" campaigning with the sort of customer-loyalty programs offered by airlines, hotel chains, restaurants and the occasional daily newspaper.

On McCain's Web site, visitors are invited to "Spread the Word" about the presumptive Republican nominee by sending campaign-supplied comments to blogs and Web sites under the visitor's screen name. The site offers sample comments ("John McCain has a comprehensive economic plan . . .") and a list of dozens of suggested destinations, conveniently broken down into "conservative," "liberal," "moderate" and "other" categories. Just cut and paste.

Activists and political operatives have used volunteers or paid staff to seed radio call-in shows or letters-to-the-editor pages for years, typically without disclosing the caller or letter writer's connection to a candidate or cause. Like the fake grass for which the practice is named, such AstroTurf messages look as though they come from the grass roots but are ersatz.

McCain's campaign has taken the same idea and given it an Internet-era twist. It also has taken the concept one step further.

People who sign up for McCain's program receive reward points each time they place a favorable comment on one of the listed Web sites (subject to verification by McCain's webmasters). The points can be traded for prizes, such as books autographed by McCain, preferred seating at campaign events, even a ride with the candidate on his bus, known as the Straight Talk Express, according to campaign spokesman Brian Rogers.

"Reward points" or other incentives for political work aren't a new concept. The Republican National Committee started a rewards program for volunteer fundraisers several years ago. More recently, Barack Obama's campaign has given small donors and volunteers the chance to win a lunch or dinner with the candidate. (Obama's campaign doesn't have a comment program similar to McCain's.)

More chillingly, dissidents alleged earlier this year that the Chinese government has paid Chinese citizens token sums for each favorable comment about government policies they post in chat rooms and on blogs.

Offering incentives to spread presidential campaign rhetoric online makes sense, says Michael Cornfield, an adjunct professor at George Washington University and an expert in political management online. "Now that social media have expanded citizen comment opportunities far beyond the old letter to the editor and talk show call-in, campaigns should take advantage," he says.

But Cornfield (an executive with a company that markets political-organizing software) says McCain's program has a couple of bugs.

The first, he says, is the lack of disclosure instructions to participants. To rise above AstroTurf -- a practice considered ethically dubious by many political operatives -- Cornfield says participants should use their real names and identify themselves as part of a campaign participation program (as in, "I'm Mike Cornfield, and I'm part of the McCain Action Team").

He also says "germaneness" is an issue: "Talking points are fine, but a comment should refer specifically to something that was said or written previously in the thread where it is intended to appear."

McCain should reconsider the program for an entirely different reason, says Zach Exley, who directed online organizing for John Kerry's Democratic presidential campaign in 2004. Both the Kerry campaign and the GOP's national committee, he said, had underwhelming results when they offered incentives of various kinds to volunteers.

"This stuff never works," Exley says. "People in politics aren't motivated by points. That's not what gets people to act. They're motivated by genuinely caring about the issues."

Indeed, he adds, some volunteers resent points and incentives because they think it demeans or devalues their work.

This might explain why some of the Web sites targeted by McCain's program haven't noticed much of a surge in pro-McCain comments.

David Wissing, the founder of the Hedgehog Report, a blog about Maryland politics, said his comment traffic has been running about 60 percent conservative and 40 percent liberal in recent weeks, which is typical. Wissing said he keeps an eye on reader comments -- he recently banned a poster for using multiple screen names -- and hasn't seen postings that use similar or identical language, usually a telltale sign of an AstroTurf program.

Another political blogger, David Adams, who runs Kentucky-centric Kyprogress.org, was unaware that McCain's campaign had listed his site as a target for comments until he was told about it by a reporter Friday. He questioned how much good such messages would do in any case. Kentucky, he points out, is a solidly Republican state that probably will vote overwhelmingly for McCain in the fall.

"Our eight votes are going to McCain no matter what he or Barack Obama says," Adams said of the electoral college.

John McCain sure would like to be the candidate of every man and woman, but his online store isn’t helping that objective.

Although $25 will get you “Jewish Americans for McCain” or “Business Leaders for McCain” (or most any other variation) T-shirts on McCain’s campaign Web site, if you give 10 times that amount — $250 — you’ll have much less, not more, luck getting a personalized sign.

We learned this from Craig Brownstein of Edelman PR here in Washington, who is a Democrat, gay and a supporter of McCain’s campaign for president.

So he headed to McCain’s presidential Web site to make a contribution and noticed that, for $250, the McCain campaign’s store would create a customized 3-by-6-foot outdoor banner for Brownstein — “25 character limit,” the site says. The store does offer a disclaimer, however: “Demeaning or derogatory names or phrases are not acceptable” and lastly, “All personalized banners are subject to content approval by the John McCain 2008 campaign.” No other limitations are mentioned.

“No problem, I don’t work blue,” Brownstein says. “I ordered the banner, went to check out and entered my desired personalized text: ‘A Proud Gay Democrat for John McCain.’ The purchase went through like any other online transaction.”

A few hours later, however, Brownstein received a call from a woman fulfilling the McCain store’s orders, and she informed Brownstein that the text was not approved. “I was told it could only be personalized with names,” said Brownstein (they would, for instance, accept “Craig and Doug for John McCain”).

Steve Swallow, chief executive officer of Tigereye Design, the official fulfillment house for Obama’s presidential campaign, told Yeas & Nays, “If I came across ‘Gay Democrats for Obama’ on our site, that’s something that we would print,” although he made sure to print that the Obama Web site provides no such personalization options.

The first question I asked John McCain and then Barack Obama was: How do you feel about the tone and direction of the campaign so far?

No surprise. Both men pronounced themselves thoroughly frustrated by the personal bitterness and negativism they have seen in the two months since they learned they would be running against each other.

"I'm very sorry about it," McCain said in a Saturday interview at his Arlington headquarters. "I think we could have avoided at least some of this if we had agreed to do the town hall meetings" together, as he had suggested, during the summer months.

Obama didn't want to do town halls so McCain had to go and lie about him not visiting the soldiers, and put out ridiculous ads.

Bad news for Democrats... Jerome Corsi's "Obama Nation" is the number one book in the country, and a handful of other anti-Obama books are selling very, very well. Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi's book hasn't sold 3,000 copies yet.